


1:00 AM

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2019-09-30 04:35:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17217083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Blink has a difficult night after getting the news that his long estranged father is on his deathbed.





	1:00 AM

It was the dead of night. Blink groped around for his clock, then flopped over in bed, with empty hands and gritted teeth. If he caught enough light to look it in the face and see that it was almost time for work, then he would throw the clock at the wall, and it would be more dented than it already was. If he looked at it and saw that it was one in the morning and he still had four more hours of sleepless thoughts to contend with, then it would also get hurled through the air, and maybe it would break. A broken alarm clock could mean being late for work, losing pay, and risking the anger of his bastard foreman. If there was anybody who Blink wanted to see drown to death and get trampled by angry horses, it was his foreman. With a closed eye, Blink tried to imagine just that scene, but soon he was tossing and turning and back to considering that goddamned clock.

He was sweating, soaked through because the night was soupy-humid-disgusting, or else because every time he felt ready to drift off to sleep, his heart sped up out of nowhere, sputtered and shuddered and thudded on its own accord, thundered in his head and chest with the weight of choices that needed to be made, or run away from, or fought with fists and teeth, till they could be left bloody and forgotten in some alleyway where Blink would never ever meet them again.

The unseen clock ticked, Blink’s heart beat, a mosquito or five buzzed somewhere nearby, and occasionally voices made it into the apartment from outside or through the building’s thin walls. Amidst all of this quiet cacophony, the sound that Blink listened for was Mush’s soft breathing.

Mush was sleeping next to him. Mush was as hot as a furnace, but Blink didn’t mind. Mush was spread out comfortably, Mush’s arms were crossed behind his head, and Mush’s face was turned away from Blink.

“Mush? Mush?” Blink nudged him. “Hey, Mush…”

Mush smiled, turned over, and wrapped his arm around Blink’s midsection, but he didn’t open his eyes. Mush always slept soundly, and in the almost two decades that Blink had known him, he’d never seen him wake up in the middle of the night for anything other than those stupid times when Blink needed him to.

This was one of those times. Blink buried his face in the damp crook of Mush’s neck, breathed in deeply, tried to let that be enough. When it wasn’t, he gave him a firm shake.

“Yeah?” Mush murmured. “Hi Kid.”

“Hey,” Blink’s voice cracked with relief.

“Dreamt there was dogs in business suits in my bakery,” Mush’s voice was vague and hushed, still making sense of the fact that dogs did not wear clothes, and he did not own a bakery. It made Blink want to kiss him, so he did, at the corner of his lips where he could feel the stubble that grew because Mush’s factory worked him like a mule, and he was often too tired to shave it off.

“You okay?” Mush asked. “What’s wrong?” He rubbed his eyes, fighting to become more awake.

The lump in Blink’s throat felt so big that he couldn’t help but wonder if it was visible from the outside, like a picture he’d once seen of a bulging snake that’d just devoured a mouse whole. Blink tried to clear it out, with a sort of hacking sound. Absently, Mush patted his shoulders, and swallowed back the beginnings of a yawn.

“Nightmare?”

Blink shook his head. Mush’s hands were gentle on his back and shoulder, but within a few minutes they were slowing, and Blink knew he’d lose him if he didn’t speak up fast.

“You know my cousin Paul?” Blink said, too loudly if the way that Mush jumped was any indication. He didn’t know Paul, anyway. Blink barely knew Paul, at least not grown-up Paul who had a full head of hair and walked like a man instead of tottering around .

“Paul should mind his own business ‘stead of looking for folks that don’t wanna be found.” Mush’s voice was full of conviction. Those were the exact words that Blink had used to explain the situation to Mush on the day that Paul came careening back into his life, with all delicacy of an elephant stampede. “Say Kid, did he find you again?”

“We meet Thursdays, most weeks. At O'Mally’s.”

Mush’s hand stilled. Blink didn’t have to look at him to know the expression he was making— that bewildered frown he got whenever he realized that Blink hadn’t been telling him stuff about his life. The stillness only lasted a few seconds, but Blink felt it.

“Seein’ Paul makes you worried,” Mush guessed.

“Yeah,” Blink mumbled. That was only half of it.

“Want me to make him go away?” It wasn’t an empty offer. Mush was big and strong, and though he didn’t pick fights on his own accord, it had never taken more than a word or two to get him to go in for Blink.

“It’ll be alright,” Blink forced himself to say. “You go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay. You go back to sleep too, Kid.” Mush shifted, so he was lying on his side, with his arms wrapped around Blink, and their bodies pressed together.

It was still stiflingly hot and the clock was still ticking, but Blink tried his best.

“You ain’t sleeping,” Mush said after a while.

“Maybe I don’t deserve too.”

“Sure you do,” Mush started to untangle himself from Blink, his movements careful, like he was trying not to wake a pet that had fallen asleep on him. “I’m gonna open up the window. It’s real hot tonight.” The only window in their tiny apartment was up high enough on the wall that Mush had to really reach for it. It creaked and screeched when touched, letting in a foul stench along with the cooler air, because it overlooked the yard where the outhouses were. Blink drew himself into a hunched over sitting position, and Mush lit up one of their oil lamps. It illuminated the room and the clock with it. 1:15. Mush took hold of Blink’s hands.

“My pa’s on his way out. That’s what Paul said. Might last a couple days still. Maybe a week.”

“That’s good, right? If he’s dead and gone, you won’t have to worry about him no more,” Mush squeezed Blink’s hands tighter. “And till that happens, you still don’t gotta be scared, ‘cause I’m here with you.”

If it was possible, Blink slumped over even further. With glassy eyes, he studied Mush’s hands. They were large and broad, calloused now from years of continuous labour. It was hard to believe that Mush had just been a little boy when Blink had first met him, probably a year or two younger than Blink’s own twelve, but even Mush hadn’t known how old he was for sure. Right from the start, Mush had been fiercely loyal, and childishly eager to take on the weight of Blink’s demons for his own. Mush was good. The part of him that could be glad that an old man lay on his deathbed had been entirely Blink’s creation, brought on by countless late night confidences in that first flush of early friendship, when bitter words and memories had come pouring out of Blink’s mouth like vomit, and Mush had just taken it. Mush hadn’t needed to know half the things that Blink told him, but Blink had been such a mess back then, not like today.

“Paul said I oughta go see him,” Blink said. “David said I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t.”

Again, that frown from Mush. “When’d you talk to Davey?”

“After O'Mally’s. Jack said he’s got an old couch I can throw out his window, if I wanna. It’s real ragged and ugly, and Jack’s got a big window. Didn’t take him up on it today. Figure I better save the offer.”

Mush didn’t ask when Blink had gotten around to talking to Jack. Jack and David came as a matched set. He was very quiet, thinking things over.

“You shouldn’t go see him,” Mush said finally, with as much conviction as Blink had ever heard from him. “He ain’t no one to you, and you don’t owe him nothin’”

Blink just nodded, unsure if he meant agreement, or simple acknowledgement.

“Hey,” Mush said. “I’ll get up early and buy us donuts for breakfast in the morning.”

Blink nodded again. “Love you,” he told Mush. It was the only thing to say. He didn’t know for sure if he’d get any sleep or not, if he’d be at his father’s bedside in the morning or not, but he did know that he loved Mush.

“If you wanna go see him, I’ll come.”

Blink shook his head violently at this, then rested it against Mush’s arm. It was too late. And he was too tired and choked up to explain, but his pa had been the worst person in his life, and Mush the best. He didn’t want them in the same room together.

“It’ll be alright,” Mush promised. “I love you too.”


End file.
